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November 06, 2003
Sister in law
Dame Brenda Hale, the first female member of the Law Lords, deployed lawyerly disingenuity at her press conference yesterday when my fellow hacks apparently confronted her with my less than flattering remarks in the Daily Mail (see 'Loaded Justice', in Articles) about her hard-line feminism, her hostility to marriage, and promotion of cohabitation rights and easier divorce. What me, she said, opposed to marriage? Good Lord, no. Yes, she had indeed 'raised for debate the question of what purpose the legal institution of marriage served'. Yes, she did indeed think there was a 'strong case for improving some of the protection available to the more vulnerable and disadvantaged partner in unmarried relationships'. Yes, she did indeed think there was a 'strong case for introducing a form of legal commitment between people who are legally unable to marry - principally, of course, gay and lesbian partners'. But she didn't think marriage served no useful purpose; nor did she wish to equate in law arrangements between the married and the unmarried. This is precisely the logic-chopping that has done such damage to marriage over the years. Its opponents never say they want to destroy it -- they'd never get anywhere if they were to be so open. They say instead that marriage is just one of many morally equal lifestyle choices. But it is not. It has a unique character because it alone creates and confers kinship. In recognition of this, it affords particular benefits, revolving around a solemn promise of lifetime monogamy and faithfulness. If those benefits are sprayed around, it busts that covenantal bargain wide open. Despite Dame Brenda's denials, giving benefits to the unmarried makes marriage -- the institution whose purpose is to enshrine those benefits -- progressively meaningless. And over the years, she and her fellow family lawyers have added a particular judicial twist to this wrecking process. Having helped make marriage meaningless -- by driving personal responsibility out of divorce, increasing benefits to cohabitants, loading the court process against fathers, and so forth -- they then turn round and say that since times have changed, the law must also change to reflect this fact. This is precisely what Dame Brenda was doing when she wrote, as long ago as 1980: 'Family law no longer makes any atempt to buttress the stability of marriage or any other union...Logically, we have already reached a point at which, rather than discussing which remedies should be extended to the unmarried, we should be considering whether the legal institution of marriage continues to serve any useful purposes'. But it was the courts, above all, who took battering ram to those buttresses in the first place. Dame Brenda insists she is not a hard-line feminist. Her elevation is nevertheless another notable scalp for the sisterhood. Posted by melanie at November 6, 2003
Comments
I have never considered myself a social conservative, but I wonder what all this destruction of societal norms is aimed at. What utopia are we trying to achieve? What have the consequences been? And most important, why do we refuse to see reality if it confounds our agenda? Some of us in the US are watching trends in GB, and fighting same here. Maybe the breakdown of norms merely correlates with non-hierarchical values. But there is this far-out theory that knowledge of right from wrong, individual responsiblity, and a clear message from society/government, affects behavior. How much correlation allows some inference of causation? O tempora, o mores! Posted by: Alene Berk at November 6, 2003 06:41 PMI'm so glad somebody criticises 'feminism' because The time has come to enquire into some of the things that our oh so liberal society is trying hard to suppress. Is feminism an unadulterated good? Has the feminisation of our society and institutions gone too far? What are consequences for such a society in a competitive world still driven by masculine values? I ask these questions out of concern and curiosity, not out prejudice. And when I refer to the undue feminisation of society I am referring to the suppression of male attitudes, not to the increased freedom of women, which I support (though I am uncomfortable with abortion). We have almost overnight become a primitive society ruled by taboos. While the age-old pillars of our society (religion and monarchy) are cynically booted around, today's obsessions with racism and feminism are treated reverentially as be beyond question (and questioning is becoming a crime) though most of the people who grovel to these beliefs today worshipped other gods in their youth. How much of this is a malign feminist phenomenon? Posted by: Michael at November 6, 2003 09:23 PMImitation is the sincerest form of television. Posted by: Graziano Laura at December 10, 2003 10:25 PMThe important thing isn't doing, but knowing how you do it. Posted by: Manwaring Jeff at December 21, 2003 02:35 AMEven a philosopher gets upset with a toothache. Posted by: Ahn Calvin at January 9, 2004 07:06 PM |
